Despite war, these American Jewish athletes are choosing to pursue their careers in Israel

(JTA) — Rachel Dallet was at soccer practice when the sirens sounded.

It was Oct. 1, and Iran was barraging Israel with around 200 ballistic missiles.

It was the second such attack this year, but a first for Dallet, 22, who had moved to Israel in July to join the Hapoel Jerusalem soccer club, currently leading Israel’s top-tier women’s Premier League.

“There were two shelters in our facility, so we all — cleats and everything on, sweaty — sprint inside,” Dallet recalled. “We were there for about an hour, I think, because there were multiple sirens. Actually a missile got shot, in the air, with the counter missile, like, right above our field.”

Basketball player Nikki Bick, 27, had a similar experience: She had arrived in Israel only two weeks earlier, and was at practice with the second-tier Ironi Ness Ziona, a professional women’s team. “That was scary, because it was the first time I was actually hearing booms,” she said. “It was constant booms, booms, booms. And sirens were going off like every five minutes.”

The experience was one obvious way in which the athletes’ experience has changed since they opted to pursue athletic careers in Israel rather than the United States: American practices, generally speaking, aren’t interrupted by missile sirens. But for both, and for former NBA G League player Ryan Turell, Israel was an inviting place to play professionally despite the country’s multi-front war.

All three moved to Israel after Oct. 7, 2023. They said they were drawn by the lure of living in Israel, as well as the country’s European-style sports ecosystem, which could afford them a more reliable career path than the hypercompetitive American pro leagues.

“It’s always been a dream of mine to play basketball in Israel professionally, ever since I was in high school and I was thinking maybe playing professionally can happen,” said Turell, 25, the former Yeshiva University basketball star. He moved to Israel in September after two seasons in the G League, the NBA’s developmental system. “I always wanted to do it.”

Turell signed with Ness Ziona’s men’s team, which plays in the Israeli Basketball Premier League. The Los Angeles native, who was the top scorer in the NCAA in his senior year at Division III Y.U., made history in 2022 by becoming the first Orthodox Jewish player to appear in the G League.

But his prospects of moving up to the NBA were slim. In 54 career games with the Motor City Cruise, the G League affiliate of the Detroit Pistons, Turell averaged only 13.3 minutes and 4.4 points per game. He said he was seeking a one-year contract with a team that would enable him to “really get exposure, but also experience playing a European style of basketball.”

Dallet, who played Division I soccer at the University of Wisconsin, said her soccer career may have been over had she stayed in the U.S.

“I honestly wasn’t planning on playing soccer past college, as most female athletes don’t, as it’s very hard in the United States to go professional,” she said. “I was already planning on moving to Israel and making aliyah, so it was a perfect opportunity to not be done playing soccer yet.”

And Bick, a New Jersey native who played basketball at Y.U.’s Stern College, said the ability to pursue a professional career also drew her to Israel.

“I’m like, wow, if I move there, maybe I can also play basketball there and have the opportunity to play at a professional level,” Bick said. “Because in America, if you don’t play for the WNBA, you’re just playing for fun, and playing basketball professionally [in Israel] is something that I always wanted to do.”

Making the move during a war was less of a slam dunk, but all three said they had wanted to try the country out for reasons beyond their careers.

Despite the violence, Turell said he still views Israel as a safe haven for Jews. “As a Jew, if you’re not safe in Israel, you’re safe nowhere around the world. That’s how I feel,” he said. He added that he’s received antisemitic threats on social media.

“You hear your grandparents talk about it and your parents talk about it, and you’re like, ‘Yeah, that can’t happen to us. That doesn’t exist today,’” he said, regarding antisemitism. “And then all of a sudden, Oct. 7 happens, and it exists, and it’s pretty apparent.”

Dallet also said the rise of antisemitism played a part in her decision. She recalled one time when she and some of her friends were walking home from a pro-Israel vigil on Nov. 7, 2023, carrying an Israeli flag, and a group of men threw a rock at them from a roof and shouted “Free Palestine” and called them “F—ing fascists.” Dallet and her friends reported the episode to police.

Dallet grew up attending Milwaukee Jewish Day School and the Reform movement’s OSRUI summer camp. She competed in three international tournaments with the Maccabiah sports organization and had been to Israel three times before making aliyah. She first made contact with Hapoel Jerusalem when she was in Israel for the 2022 Maccabiah Games, and the club followed the final part of her collegiate career and started discussing a contract as she neared graduation.

“Ever since the Maccabiah Games, honestly, I was like, I want to live here,” Dallet said shortly after her move. “I had the time of my life. The people here, the food, everything is just so fun. I love being around everyone who’s Jewish. It’s just a different feeling coming from Wisconsin, where you’re a minority as Jew.”

She said she’s been surprised by how normal daily life has felt despite the ongoing war.

“Everybody just lives their lives, which is the craziest part,” Dallet said. “Because there’s this crazy war going on, but everyone goes to work, has fun, hangs out with friends. It’s like normal life here, everyone’s just continuing to live.”

Bick, who’s also a licensed physical therapist, arrived in Israel Sept. 19 from New York City. She said she knew she had wanted to leave New York and had always thought Tel Aviv would be a great place to live. Her lease in New York was ending, so she decided to make the leap.

Bick said that when she had decided to begin the aliyah process, she reached out to a number of basketball teams. Ness Ziona was the only team that was willing to sign her without an in-person tryout.

Now she’s juggling her full-time job as a physical therapist with her basketball obligations. Three nights a week, she gets home from an eight-and-a-half hour workday, grabs a bite and heads to practice. She said the social dynamics in Israel are noticeably different, recalling a time recently when she was carrying furniture and a stranger came over, unprompted, to help her.

“In America, you don’t feel that,” she said. “You don’t feel like you have people around you that support you always. Here it feels like there’s always people to help you, and bring you up. I don’t feel alone.”

Dallet said that feeling of camaraderie extends to her team. Much of the team lives in the same apartment building in Jerusalem, and they spend a lot of time together outside of practice.

“When it comes to soccer, we all pretty much speak the same language,” she said. “We all want to win. Everyone has the same goal in mind — win the league. So when it comes to the locker room, it’s pretty normal, standard, same as it would be at college or in club.”

Actually speaking the same language has been more of a challenge. While many Israelis speak English, professional sports teams operate in Hebrew. Dallet said she got a part-time job at a cafe, in part to work on her Hebrew.

“The language barrier is hard to connect sometimes on a deeper level,” she said. But she added, “When it comes to soccer, we’re definitely all on the same page.”

All three athletes said they had to adjust to a different style of play than they were used to in the U.S.

“They have a lot of set plays and places where you’ve got to be on offense, like every time down the court, it’s a set play,” Bick explained. “In America, it’s more like a free play, more motion-y. You kind of just feel out the game. Here it just feels more structured.”

Turell also said he noticed an immediate difference in the style, which he said is more strategic and less athletic than in the states.

“You’re really thinking the game more than just playing it,” Turell said. “There’s a lot of strategy that goes into it, a lot more strategy that goes into it than in NBA-style play.”

The stakes are also different for Turell. He said that in the G League, which exists to be a stepping stone to the NBA, the focus was more on personal improvement. In Israel, where he’s playing in the top-tier league, it’s all about winning.

“In the G League, there’s 52 games, you can drop a few,” Turell said. “They really care about player development… Here it’s about, let’s win, let’s try to get the organization to improve.”

Dallet, too, said she has had to adjust her approach to match the style of soccer that’s played in Israel and across Europe. But her takeaway was the opposite of the basketball players: The Israeli game, she feels, is less strategic.

“It’s so much more of a physical game here and less tactics,” she said. “We’re coming from college, where it’s all tactics and I’d say prettier soccer. Here it’s more physical and aggressive, so that was a big challenge in the beginning.”

As far as the future goes, all three athletes said they’re taking it one year at a time.

Bick said that given her history of injuries, “the fact that I’m still able to play at this level is amazing.” Dallet said she plans to go to graduate school eventually.

For Turell, the goal is “reach my ceiling as a basketball player” — wherever that may be.

“If you would tell me in high school I was going to be a G League player, I’d be like, ‘Yeah, what are you talking about? You don’t know what you’re talking about,’” Turell said. “In college, if you told me NBA teams were going to start coming to my games, I’d be like, ‘Dude, what are you talking about?’”

He added, “So it’s just one day at a time, putting in the work and letting the work take me to wherever it’s going to take me.”

Could a pro career in Israel be a pathway to the NBA, where Turell would become the league’s first-ever Orthodox player? He wouldn’t be the first to make that jump: Omri Casspi, the first Israeli to play in the NBA, and Deni Avdija, currently the NBA’s lone Israeli, both joined the NBA after playing professionally in Israel. Others, like Amar’e Stoudemire and Patrick Beverley, played in Israel after successful NBA careers.

“I mean, yeah, it’d be a dream,” Turell said. “That’d be amazing.”

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